Dolby Files Patent Lawsuit Against RIM

Dolby filed a lawsuit against Research In Motion today, alleging that the BlackBerry maker is violating Dolby's audio patents. Specifically, the patents cover digital audio compression that let phone makers enable playback of high quality music files (High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding — HE AAC) with minimal use of storage and data transmission. Dolby licenses its technology to other handset makers, but it has been unable to strike a licensing agreement with RIM despite RIM's use of the technology. The lawsuits were filed in California and in Germany.